In comparison to road vehicles manufactured one or two decades ago, contemporary road vehicles are capable of providing their occupants with an enhanced degree of protection during impact events. Such an enhanced degree of protection can be identified in accident statistics such that, despite a continuing increase in road traffic with time, the relative number of accidents involving severe personal injury has been decreasing with time. Such an enhanced degree of protection has been achieved by virtue of a combination of safety features including one or more of: seat belts, airbags, improved seat design, impact crumple zones and judicious inclusion of strengthening structures within vehicles. Moreover, such a combination of safety features has been included while taking into consideration a need to reduce vehicle weight for enhancing fuel economy as well as reducing road vehicle manufacturing costs.
During vehicle design and manufacture, it is known that employing common components for various models of road vehicles is capable of reducing road vehicle design costs as well as simplifying manufacturing of such road vehicles. In a context of the present invention, it is desirable to have available in road vehicle manufacture various impact force coupling assemblies which can be used when adapting a common design of vehicle chassis to various models of vehicle while maintaining a high degree of structural safety for meeting contemporary requirements for occupant impact protection. Design of such assemblies is particularly pertinent when road vehicle side-impact protection is a consideration.
Thus, a technical problem addressed by the present invention is to provide an impact force coupling assembly which is susceptible to being used to couple impact forces in connection with a road vehicle body or chassis, for example in a design of body or chassis common to a plurality of road vehicle models, so as to provide enhanced occupant protection during an impact event, for example a vehicle side impact.